Press Release

SEA Foundation proudly announces the first exhibition of one of Europe’s most celebrated landscape painters, Simon Carter.

Highly regarded for his landscape paintings, Simon Carter (1961) will be showing a collection of his work in The Netherlands from 19 February to 10 April 2016. The well-respected artist was invited by the Netherlands-based SEA Foundation to show his work in Tilburg. As a British native, the contemporary works of Simon Carter stand in a tradition of his country’s previous landscape painters like John Constable and William Turmer. Besides exhibitions in England, Carter’s work has also been shown in America as well as Canada, but has never travelled to Europe’s mainland.

Carter is known for painting the coastal region around Frinton-on-Sea, the place where he was born and bred. It has the familiarity of a Dutch coastal landscape such as the countryside near Frinton, and the landscapes are typically flat, having similarity in vegetation and appearance as well, but there is, however, one distinct difference. Compared to the Dutch costal landscape, the light has another quality, mainly because the North Sea lies easterly in Essex and not westerly as it does in The Netherlands.

From an artist we expect that Carter works profoundly and that he travels extensively, exploring and investigating the world around him in great detail. Carter does exactly that. He does not travel the world, but rather travels in his world. He investigates and exclusively paints the landscape that is ever so familiar to him. The artist’s method is to travel on foot, and with a sketchbook and black crayons at hand, Carter explores his natural surroundings. He portrays his beloved muse: the sea, and he draws and paints his other muses, whether they be the swampy marshlands or the meandering creeks with brackish water, the grey mud pools or cumbersome vegetation. Most importantly, the artist calls for attention to the landscape through framing by presenting a chosen scene, which is first filtered and isolated through observation and sketching. Some landscapes are depicted well over a hundred times. Moreover, because of the density in experience, over the years Carter’s color palette has become increasingly restricted.

Carter’s way of working in close proximity of his home, his laborious and intensive way of production, as well as the restricted pallet truly seem to set him apart from the current trends in contemporary art. The opposite, however, is true as Carter concocts and adds powerful new entities into the contemporary. He scans the landscape and offers 'metronome'-like rhythm to create a gripping presence. He strikes powerful combinations, rhythm and form as his works are densely packed with light and time to reflect the contemporary within. Overall, his method of working is fascinating and arises from years of observation and collecting knowledge, transforming figuration of all seasons through dark and illuminated lines with action brush work. As Carter's way of working is based on passion it results in an incontrovertibly compelling work that posses a memorable intensity due to radiating awareness that not only leaves a lingering effect, but touches deeply.

Landscape painting is a genre that in England, the Netherlands, and all of Europe, really, stands in a great tradition. Painting landscape connects with the renewed emphasis on global authenticity as well as locally oriented production with an emphasis on nature and the self. At the same time, the spirit of nature, as painted by Simon Carter creates a league of its own towards a new, fascinating landscape painting genre that is not only exciting, but incredibly independent.